Better (Too Good series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

much.”
    “You don’t feel badly at all for calling me a fucking bitch, do you?” Ms. Donovan asked.
    Cadence was unsure where the conversation was headed. She didn’t know how she was expected to answer, so she told the truth.
    “No.”
    Ms. Donovan’s lips curled into a nasty grin. “Then I don’t feel badly for what I’m about to tell you.”
    Cadence steeled herself.
    “You think you’re a really special girl because a teacher showed you some interest. Isn’t that right? You’re special because he said nice things to you and fucked you. Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret.” She paused for effect. “You’re not.”
    Cadence realized this ha d nothing to do with breaking girl code. That’s what she originally thought as she walked back to calculus to fake apologize. She thought Ms. Donovan was angry with her because she was dating a man who should be dating an older woman—an older woman like Ms. Donovan. But she realized in that moment that it had nothing to do with girl code. It had to do with something terrible that happened in Ms. Donovan’s past.
    “He broke it off, didn’t he?” she asked before she could stop herself.
    “What are you talking about?” Ms. Donovan snapped.
    “Your teacher. You loved him, and he ended it,” Cadence said quietly.
    Ms. Donovan’s face twisted in disgust. “They all do. You’re not special, Cadence. He’ll leave you, too. You’re just a stupid little girl who can’t see past his charms and lies.”
    Cadence shook her head. She knew it wasn’t true. This woman wanted to feed her poison because her hea rt was warped and jaded. But Cadence wouldn’t let her. She folded her hands over her heart. They acted as a shield against Ms. Donovan’s putrid words.
    “I’m sorry he did that to you,” Cadence said.
    “Get out.”
    “I’m sorry he broke your heart.”
    “I said get out!”
    Cadence left the room, closing the door softly behind her. She peeked throug h the window and saw Ms. Donovan bury her face in her hands. And then her body shook. And suddenly large angry X’s on Cadence’s quiz weren’t important anymore. It really had nothing to do with her—this pain she was witnessing inside Mr. Connelly’s old classroom. It was about heartbreak and an easy target. Heartbreak and ruin. Heartbreak and bitterness.
    Heartbreak.

Mark sat in his car staring through the windshield. Any minute now, Cadence, dressed in graduation robe and cap, would round the corner with her brother and Fanny. All he wanted was to see her smile.
    He knew her parents didn’t show up. They made their intentions clear three nights ago when Cadence called home to speak to her mother. After she hung up, she told Mark she didn’t care that they refused to attend, but he awoke later that night to the sounds of her soft cries. She was curled up lying close to the edge of the bed, far away from him. He reached out to touch her, then stopped. Something told him not to, that it’d be disastrous if he tried to comfort her. So he left her alone. The next morning she was bright and cheery and as fake as he’d ever seen her.
    He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Please smile. Plea se smile. Please smile.”
    He thought back to the first time he saw her really smile. She grinned at him on the side of Highway 28, but it wasn’t until she sat on a metal bench in the bus parking lot on the first day of school that he saw a real smile. She giggled about the names she’d been calling him, revealing pretty teeth with one imperfection. She had a calcium deposit on her eye tooth. Yeah, he’d noticed. And he recalled feeling like a total creep for liking it so much.
    He stopped drumming his fingers when he saw her. She was flanked by her brother and Fanny, and she was laughing. Thank God! The relief was instantaneous, the coiled tension wrapped around his heart falling away. He could breathe again.
    Caden ce opened the passenger door and climbed in.
    “It was hot as hell